Where is the “I don’t care” vote because, I guess, I don’t care about Flash. It does seem that when a webpage is causing problems it’s generally because of Flash. I’m not a fan of annoying animated ads, so nothing lost there if those go away.

It can go away, no biggee to me.

The stick figure fighting movies are funny, but you can make those in some other format.

Dude, that’s a stretch. Why not get a hobby? Does this kind of thing really make you happy?

Look at the poll!! What’s the stretch? My hobby is people watching and laughing out loud. Makes you nervous, huh?

Well, doesn’t it stand to reason the poll is talking about the Desktop OS. I mean, iPhone OS can’t render Flash so why ask? Look at answer 4. Not on my “Computer” I don’t know about you but I’m not about to start using a desktop/laptop running Android. Please.

Well, doesn’t it stand to reason the poll is talking about the Desktop OS. I mean, iPhone OS can’t render Flash so why ask?

You’re not in on the joke, huh? Steve posted his thoughts on why Flash will never be on iPhone and iPad. That’s why it’s relevant today.

And by the way, iPhone OS can render Flash! Adobe in CS5 has a way for Flash developers to compile applications that can be submitted to the App Store. These apps can and do access data from the Internet. Several such apps are currently for sale there! Apple banned this approach to app development if you weren’t paying attention. So those great apps will disappear soon :(.

What’s amazing to me, is that despite what Steve says, his underpowered iPhone 3GS (I have one in my drawer—it’s SIM card went to a Nexus One two weeks ago) can actually run these apps for hours! I feel kinda cheated, because I bought my Nexus One thinking I needed to buy a real phone to be able to do that.

I wish Flash would go away entirely. Its entrenchment in websites has brought my Mac browser to a crawl on numerous occasions, and crashes are all too familiar. The fact that Adobe has ignored optimization on the Mac side proves to me that they aren’t willing to dedicate the resources to make Flash a pleasant experience on the Mac.

Whenever I watch a Flash video on my MacBook Pro, the fans spin up, and the CPU cycles go through the roof!

Steve and Apple are doing us all an insanely great service by taking a firm stand, and demanding great performance on the software allowed to run on the iPhone and iPad. Already, websites are embracing HTML5 so their sites can be viewed on the iPhone and iPad.

The Internet is a world-wide resource, and should not be driven by a closed-system, profit-mongering company with only their self interests in mind.

Well, doesn’t it stand to reason the poll is talking about the Desktop OS. I mean, iPhone OS can’t render Flash so why ask?

You’re not in on the joke, huh? Steve posted his thoughts on why Flash will never be on iPhone and iPad. That’s why it’s relevant today.

And by the way, iPhone OS can render Flash! Adobe in CS5 has a way for Flash developers to compile applications that can be submitted to the App Store. These apps can and do access data from the Internet. Several such apps are currently for sale there! Apple banned this approach to app development if you weren’t paying attention. So those great apps will disappear soon :(.

What’s amazing to me, is that despite what Steve says, his underpowered iPhone 3GS (I have one in my drawer—it’s SIM card went to a Nexus One two weeks ago) can actually run these apps for hours! I feel kinda cheated, because I bought my Nexus One thinking I needed to buy a real phone to be able to do that.

The number of sites I’ve tried to go to on my phone which require Flash is vanishingly small - they tend to be restaurants which have Flash entry screens and no other way into site. They frustrate me at the time, but I get over it. It will take them some time, if they ever feel manipulated by Jobs or get complaints from people, to change.

Jobs has made a politico-business decision to not support Flash and endorse HTML-5 - shrug, his call. Or at least, more his than mine! It remains to be seen whether Jobs wins this battle, or eventually quietly admits defeat.

This is hilarious. Most who respond to the poll (as of now) selectively block Flash. And all of you will call me nerdy and techie for embracing Android. Fracking hilarious guys!

Not sure why it’s hilarious. I’m answering the question about how Flash affects daily internet use: my daily internet use involves my Mac at work, and my Mac at home, both of which, in general Flash is an annoyance and resource hog when viewing the web. I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad.

And if we want to talk nerdy, then it’s “frelling” not “fracking.”

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What’s amazing to me, is that despite what Steve says, his underpowered iPhone 3GS (I have one in my drawer—it’s SIM card went to a Nexus One two weeks ago) can actually run these apps for hours! I feel kinda cheated, because I bought my Nexus One thinking I needed to buy a real phone to be able to do that.

So how does Flash perform on that Nexus One? And by the way, I am genuinely curious (not implying that it performs poorly or anything). Have you tested battery life, is it fast, how does it handle the mouse-over events? Is there some key combination (or multi-touch gesture) that you need to do in order to get a mouse-over? Nobody who has an Android device has yet written anything of substance about their Flash performance, and I’m sure vast majority of geeky iPhone owners would be quite interested to hear about it.

On the one hand, it’s been a thorn in my side as a Mac user since as long as it’s been around. The Mac version has always performed MUCH worse than the PC version, to the point where Flash games that run perfecly fine on ancient PCs need a G5-class Mac to run well. Running Flash on my old G4 system was almost always painful, except for the most basic things.

Furthermore, the vast majority of what I use Flash for day-to-day is videos, which can easily be delivered through other means. Since Flash performance has always been so terrible compared to other players, I’m glad to see alternatives picking up steam.

Then there are those web sites whose entire interface is composed of a giant SWF. I hate these and will almost always leave the site immediately. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons.

Then there are Flash games. I’m no expert in HTML5, but I don’t think it’s possible to get that kind of functionality with it. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s possible to guarantee appearance and user experience with HTML the way it is with Flash. HTML is always interpreted by the browser, and different browsers present things slightly differently. This is generally okay (and even preferable) for web sites, but not for games. I’m not so much into web development these days, but I think that even today you need hacks to support various different browsers.

Frankly, I can live with not having Flash games running in the browser. BUT, I don’t think it suits anyone but Apple to make it impossible to run them at all. Let them be distributed as standalones, or auto-ported to Objective-C and compiled like any other app.

As a developer, I’ve often considered learning Flash because it would let me write once and run anywhere. I usually decided it wasn’t worth it because of the shitty non-Windows support, but it HAS gotten better. For simple games it’s an appealing platform. But now Apple is trying their damnedest to make sure that I will need to choose between writing for iPhone and writing for anything else. I didn’t appreciate that attitude when it came from Microsoft, and I don’t appreciate it now. It works against me as a developer, and it works against me as a user. That’s the bottom line.

Yes, I understand Apple’s perspective. But so what? From MY perspective (and I would think yours as well), it’s all bad news. I understood Microsoft’s perspective during all their dirty dealings in the 90s, too. Didn’t make it right.

Aside from Flash, the fact that Apple has also precluded the possibility of tools like HyperCard, REALbasic, and even Python being used for iPhone development in the future disgusts me. I learned a great deal using my Mac when I was a kid, largely through HyperCard and REALbasic, and it seems like Apple is hellbent on denying people the same opportunities with new technology. This is really depressing.

I’m not used to rooting against Apple, but in this case I have to. I think we’ll have a much healthier technological ecosystem if Apple fail. But hey, I didn’t mind that Macs had tiny market share in the old days, so why should I care that Android does today? I guess Android is the new Mac.

tl;dr: I don’t care so much if Flash won’t run in Safari on iPhone/iPad, but Apple needs to stop being so fanatically anti-Flash and change their license agreement back.

I’ve owned one Mac or another for all 27 years of its existence, and I have used Flash as a consumer for about the last 15 of those years. I have never, ever once had a crash while using it or viewing Flash video on a web site.

So, what am I doing wrong?

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“A body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion until pushed out of bounds by the Strong Safety.” ~ Issac Newton’s First Law of Physics